Helen Gurley Brown dies at 90

[Gaybutton]

Former Cosmo editor Gurley Brown dead at 90

By the CNN Wire Staff
Tue August 14, 2012

New York (CNN) -- Helen Gurley Brown, who created the idea of a modern woman with her book "Sex and the Single Girl" and was editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for three decades, has died at age 90, the Hearst Corporation said Monday.

Gurley Brown died Monday morning at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia after a brief hospitalization, the publisher said.

"Helen was one of the world's most recognized magazine editors and book authors, and a true pioneer for women in journalism -- and beyond," Hearst Chief Executive Frank Bennack said.

It was Gurley Brown who invented today's notion of a modern woman -- one who could have both a successful career and an exciting, satisfying sex life, said Bonnie Fuller, the influential magazine editor who took over at Cosmopolitan when Gurley Brown stepped down in 1997.

"Young women today don't realize the legacy that they owe her," Fuller said in an interview with CNN.

Gurley Brown's 1962 book "Sex and the Single Girl" encouraged young women to enjoy being single, find fulfillment in work and non-marital relationships with men, and take pleasure in sex, Hearst said. The book was on the bestseller lists for more than a year and became a movie starring Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Lauren Bacall, and Henry Fonda.

When Betty Friedan's book "The Feminine Mystique" ushered in the modern women's movement in 1963, the two books and their authors helped lead the growing national dialogue about the place of women in society and popular culture, Hearst said.


Full story and photos: http://us.cnn.com/2012/08/13/us/obit-he ... index.html